The Midnight Man (22 page)

“I tried to get hold of you all day yesterday,” she said. “When I couldn’t reach you here I tried your home, but there was no answer there either.”

“I did a lot of moving around yesterday. I tried to call you once too and got a busy signal for my trouble. What was it you wanted to talk to me about?”

She looked down at her purse. Her knuckles were white on the edge of it. Then she looked back at me. In that light her eyes were like jade. “I wanted to apologize for my behavior the night before last. And to explain. I know what you must think of me.”

“We’ve been all over that, Mrs. Sturtevant. Like you said, you weren’t alone. Stress brings out sides of our personalities few people ever see.”

“You sounded just like Joyce Brothers then.” She laughed, a little too gaily.

“Excuse it, please. Once you’ve been in this business a while you get to be either a vest-pocket Freud or a saltine. How are things between you and Florence Nightingale, if it’s any of my concern, which of course it isn’t?”

She shrugged. “They were never warm; that hasn’t changed. She didn’t say anything to Van. I can tell, even if he can’t talk. She knows her boundaries and she stays within them. In a way, that’s much worse than anything she could have done or said.”

“That’s guilt. Forget it. I think you have. That isn’t the real reason you’ve come, is it?”

“It’s one of them. Mainly I’m here as a client.” Her gaze was level. All the awkwardness had evaporated. She was a cop’s wife, all right.

I started to pluck out a cigarette, then pushed it back in. It wasn’t dignified enough or businesslike enough. I’d thought from time to time about taking up the pipe, but it involves an entirely different set of mannerisms, none of them honest. “I know where Smith was last night. When the evening
News
hits the street, so will everyone else. Where he is now I couldn’t say.”

Her fingers whitened further on the edge of the purse as I related the details of the police discovery on Bagley, leaving out the mayor. As I wound down her eyes took on an emerald hardness.

“It looks as if I hired the wrong man,” she said stiffly. “Perhaps I should have gone to this Bassett person.”

“In the first place,” I sighed, “you hired me because the price was right. In the second place, Bassett’s not the kind of man anyone hires, and in the third place, you came to me in the first place. I didn’t go looking for this job. But due in no small measure to my courage and sagacity, the police have a man in custody right now who holds the key to this whole case. Now, I know that’s not what we agreed on, but I have to work in this town and a certain amount of cooperation with the local constabulary is the price I pay to go on practicing.”

She started to speak. I held up a hand. “As you recall, I gave you an out night before last, and you chose not to take it. I’m offering it again. There are some good men in this city whose services I can recommend, though I can’t guarantee they’ll come as cheap. If you accept I’ll consider my obligation to your husband discharged.”

“My,” she said, after a beat. “Aren’t we testy.”

“I have a headache. I’m not at my most disarming when I hurt.”

She leaned forward over the desk. The mole came into view just above the second button of her blouse. “I’m sorry for what I said. Straight thinking doesn’t come easily to me these days. Please go on doing what you’ve been doing.” She lowered her eyes for an instant. Her long thick lashes were natural. When she raised them I saw tiny gold flecks floating in the deep green, like phosphor in an aquarium. “I wish you’d known me before—all this. I wasn’t always a bad-tempered whore.”

That presented thorns no matter where I took hold of it, so I didn’t. That was just as bad. We were still looking at each other when the telephone rang.

I speared it halfway through the first jangle. Bell’s invention has done more for celibacy than all the saltpeter produced over the past two centuries. “Walker.”

“Don’t bother tracing this, pig. I’ll be smoke by the time anyone shows up.”

An even voice, young, masculine, slightly drawled, a little out of breath. Traffic noises in the background. Karen Sturtevant saw my reaction and leaned closer.

“Is this Mr. Jones?” I asked. Simple association. Even my client caught it. Her eyes widened, then returned to normal. Unattractive lines appeared under her eyes and from her nose to her mouth. Her nostrils went white.

“That’s right. Stupefyin’ Jones. Like in
Li’I Abner,
get it?”

I said I had it. “I didn’t expect my message to reach you so soon.”

“I got lots of friends. What you got to sell?”

“Same as in the message. Your life.”

He laughed nastily. “Damaged goods, pig. Sell me something I can use.”

“That’s my point. I’m not a pig.”

“You roll in their mud, honk.”

“That doesn’t make me one of them. You want to keep breathing or what?”

“I hear you talking.”

“Here’s the script. We meet someplace, your choice. You turn yourself over. I make a call to the press, have them at police headquarters when we arrive. TV cameras, the works. That way you don’t get picked off on the way up the steps. The idea is to get you into police custody alive. After that you’re on your own.”

“Why can’t I just walk in by myself like I done before?”

“You know the answer to that or you wouldn’t have called.”

An automobile horn blasted wherever he was. I wondered what sort of disguise he was wearing to call from a public booth in broad daylight. “How does this make you rich?” he asked.

“Publicity. When you do what I do, a little free advertising never hurts. Also the people I work for want you brought in kicking. Who they are doesn’t matter.” I met Karen Sturtevant’s gaze. “Thing is, I’ve nothing to gain from your untimely death.”

“Words. Why’d you say I want to do this again? I’m flappin’ free right now.”

“What are you wearing?”

“Huh?”

“Your clothes. I’ll take a guess. Big hat, long coat with a standing collar.”

“Pretty close, pig. So what?”

“It’s eighty-nine in the shade. You call that free?”

He said nothing. I pressed on.

“A lot of otherwise tolerant people want to stuff you and stand you out by the airport as a monument to safe streets. They’ve saved a spot for you next to Laura Gaye and the rest.”

“You know about that, huh?” I thought he sounded subdued. Then I thought he didn’t. You can’t tell over the telephone.

“It was pretty tight,” I said. “Your odds of squeaking through the next time are that much smaller.”

“Call you back in ten.” The line went dead.

“He’s afraid of a trace,” I told Mrs. Sturtevant, pegging the receiver.

“I heard. I think I’ll have that cigarette now,” she said.

I reached one over. This time she let me light it. She tilted back her head and expelled smoke, showing off the long line of her neck.

“Do you think he’ll agree to it?”

“We’ll know in ten minutes.”

“It’s an eerie feeling, listening to you talk to the man who shot Van. Like going back over what’s left of your house after it burned down. You can almost convince yourself it didn’t happen until you’re faced with the evidence. But of course I face it every day, so maybe it’s not the same at all. Still, it’s strange.”

There was nothing in that for me. I lit one up too. We sat and smoked and took turns using the ashtray on the desk. Streetside a big truck took off from the light with a loud mashing of gears. The sound reminded me of Dooley Bass and his Kenworth. I hadn’t read anything of him in the papers, so I assumed Transcontinental Transport had elected not to press charges. He was probably driving for another company under somebody else’s license. Keeping his nose clean until the climate cooled down enough to attempt another boost. People don’t change, don’t change, don’t change.

The telephone beckoned again and I took time squashing out the butt, letting it go three times before answering.

“Where the hell was you, in the can?” He sounded agitated, maybe. There were no traffic noises this time. He’d found another instrument.

“Where’ll we meet?” I asked.

“Pretty sure of yourself, ain’t you, pig?”

“You dropped the dimes, not me. And if you keep calling me that we can consider this conversation terminated.”

“Okay, okay. Don’t get hot on me, man.” He paused. “There’s an old brownstone on Antietam. You can’t miss it. It’s got a great big
CONDEMNED
sign on the front door.” He gave the address.

“I know the area,” I said, scribbling the number on the calendar pad.

“Not as good as me. I grew up there. Midnight. Come in the Antietam side. No weapons. Wait for me in the lobby. I’ll be watching good and close, so don’t get cute.”

“Is it all right if I come alone?”

“You’re a riot, Walker.”

“That’s almost twelve hours,” I said. “Think you can hold out that long?”

“Just worry about your own self. My face might just be the last thing you ever see.” On that blinding note he hung up.

“Are you going?” Mrs. Sturtevant was studying me.

“It’s my party. Can I call you a cab?” I got up from behind the desk.

She rose. “I drove. Be careful, Mr. Walker. I suppose you’ve been told that before.”

“Not as often as I’d like. This conversation doesn’t leave this room, okay? Wait till after midnight to tell your husband. Neighborhoods like yours are full of ears.”

“You have my word. You won’t forget to call once you have him?”

I said I wouldn’t forget and put a hand on her elbow to turn her toward the door. She didn’t budge.

“He’d have nothing to lose by killing you, you know,” she said. “What I’m saying is, if worst comes to worst, don’t feel bound by my request to bring him in alive.”

“That dedicated I’m not. Thanks for dropping by, Mrs. Sturtevant. I’ll call you, one way or the other.” I went over to get the door for her and here was one women who let me.

M
Y NEXT CALL
was to Barry Stackpole, asking him to be available around midnight and to be prepared to share the event with colleagues. He was too good a reporter not to press me on the details, but when I didn’t comply he was too good a friend not to back off. We ended the conversation on a note best described as amiably obscene.

The rest of the day passed routinely, which is to say soporifically. After lunch I came back to the office and started spelling my name across the pad with pencils taken from the cup on the desk, but I ran out before finishing the
K
. I turned on the radio in time for the news. The manhunt for Smith had dropped to third place behind the mayor’s address to council and the Bagley shooting. Bassett’s name wasn’t mentioned and no connection was made between the bloodbath and Smith. The victims remained unidentified. When it comes to aggressive reporting, broadcast journalism ranks next to blue cheese.

A patch of Venetian-blind-striped sunlight had by this time shifted from the right wall to the floor. I made a bet with myself on how long it would take to reach the desk and won on points.

At half-past two a fortyish woman came in and sat in the customer’s chair and dangled a ten percent finder’s fee under my nose for the return of a hundred-dollar bracelet she swore had been ripped off by a co-worker at the office where she was employed as a secretary. She named the co-worker. I told her that although the ten bucks was tempting I was involved with something else at present, and gave her the name of a fellow P.I. I had never liked. She was the only visitor I had all afternoon.

I played six games of solitaire and lost every one. Then I played a seventh under my own rules. I lost that one too.

The telephone rang twice. The first caller tried to sell me wall-to-wall carpeting for next to nothing if I agreed to let his company use my office as a model, and the second was a drunk looking for somebody named Madeleine. I tried to strike up a conversation with each of them, but they lost interest when they found I didn’t have what they were after My practice, always at low ebb, all but dried up during the vacation season. When the clock hand finally crept around to five I locked up and went home.

I fixed supper and ate it in front of the television set, where John Wayne was fighting Indians in
Hondo,
a favorite. When that was over I set the alarm for ten and stretched out fully clothed on the bed. For a change I slept without dreaming.

At quarter-past eleven I left the house with my .38 snapped to my belt under the jacket. Instructions to the contrary, people who keep late-night appointments with killers on streets like Antietam without arming themselves first don’t deserve to come back.

T
HERE WAS A NEW MOON
that night. The stars glittered like steel bearings on a black cloth. To the south a lone jet crawled silently westward between winking red and green lights, separated from the hollow whooshing of its engines by an entire sky.

The building was a slightly denser mass than the blackness that surrounded it, sensed rather than seen, blank, silent. The beam from my flash picked out six concrete steps leading up to the entrance, worn hollow by the passage of feet that no longer trod anywhere, steps as old as the battle for which the street was named. Even the
CONDEMNED
notice tacked to the door looked mature enough to vote. At the top of the steps I snapped off the flash and pocketed it.

It was the drying perspiration of a long day, and not a premonition of death, that chilled me as I pulled open the door on crusted hinges. But I upholstered the Smith & Wesson just the same and kept my hand on it in the side pocket of my jacket. The ruins of a padlock and chain jingled from the scaly iron door handle.

I stepped across a crumbling threshold—and was instantly whisked back to the alley next to the gymnasium on McDougall. Suffocating darkness wrapped itself around me, smelling sourly of urine and old garbage and rats. The pain of that earlier awakening raked my rib cage and arms and legs and head, the last still suffering from Bum Bassett’s symphony for cane and gun. I moved sideways quickly to avoid being outlined against the lighter rectangle of the doorway and stood without moving, my back against the wall, breathing shallowly between parted lips while waiting for my eyes to adjust.